Sea Breeze & Land Breeze: Thermal Circulation

Coastal winds reverse twice a day because land and water heat up and cool down at very different rates. This simulator renders the real physics behind that reversal: a diurnal temperature model for land and sea drives a closed streamfunction airflow cell, so warm air rises and cool air sinks in a way that is always mass-conserving. Slide through a 24-hour cycle (or let it auto-advance) to watch the daytime sea breeze — cool ocean air flowing onshore — flip into the nighttime land breeze as the land cools faster than the sea. A thermal-contrast control shows how the effect strengthens or weakens with the season, and a prevailing-wind control demonstrates why a real sea breeze only forms when the background synoptic wind is weak enough for the local thermal circulation to dominate.